


But First, We Bloom

by azaleahs



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Teen Angst, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 08:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20832245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azaleahs/pseuds/azaleahs
Summary: When Brooke took Fangs’ suggestion to respond to a job offer at a flower shop near the Northside/Southside line, she didn't expect that she’d be getting hired by the grandmother of the guy who kinda sorta hates her guts for no reason.





	But First, We Bloom

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Southside Archive Weekly AU 'Floral Shop/Florist.' I’m currently planning to turn this into a short series because I have a lot of ideas that I couldn’t fit into this one part. Canon is severely ignored in this. All you need to know is that the merger happened, the Northside/Southside tension exists, Riot Night will not happen, and the Black Hood? Babes, we don’t know him.

If you ask Sweet Pea about his happy place, he’ll more than likely tell you about his grandma’s flower shop.

A few blocks over from Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe, where the Northside of Riverdale blurs into the Southside, sits Sweet Stems. The shop had been Suyin Mei’s pride and joy well before Sweet Pea had been born. She had opened the store with her husband, pooling their savings to make their dream a reality. Opening a store dedicated to flowers had been, quite frankly, the biggest gamble to be made on the Southside, but it was one that Suyin had made without an ounce of fear.

And it had paid off.

Over the years that the shop had been open, selling bouquets of fragrant and vibrant blooms to blushing brides and repenting boyfriends, Suyin had seen nothing but booming business in her little slice of happiness in an otherwise dreary town. Sweet Stems took its place as the only flower shop on the Southside and the most popular in Riverdale overall.

When it came to her flowers, the tensions of the North and South of Riverdale seemed to be nonexistent. Even the prissiest of PTA mom’s and rich, hoity-toity businessman and their kids from the _right side of the tracks_ would flock to Sweet Stems.

To everyone else, it’s just a wonderful shop to visit. To Sweet Pea, it’s everything.

Having lived with his grandma since he was a scrawny little kid that barely cleared four feet, he’d practically grown up in Sweet Stems. Every day after school, he’d make the trip home from Southside Elementary to his grandma’s shop, welcomed back by the brilliant smile of his grandma and the smell of peonies and lavender. He’d been taught to make arrangements and snip thorns from roses since before he could do basic division. A tradition, as one might expect, that continued well into high school.

The usual customers know him by name and everyone on the Southside knows him as Suyin’s grandson first, Serpent second — hell, that’s even how he got his nickname. On the days when Jones and the others didn’t need him, he trades in his leather for an apron, mostly working weekends now that he was moving up the ranks in the Serpents. On those days, he’s not Sweet Pea, the perpetually bruised and angry teenager who punched first and asked questions later. Instead, he’s just Nathan, his grandma’s best helper who was more than likely to prick himself ten times before finally shearing a rose of all of its imperfections.

To Sweet Pea, there’s not anything in the world more comforting than being in this shop. In here, the rest of the world fades away amongst the blooms. In here, there’s no tension between the two sides of the town. There’s no Riverdale High, no Bulldogs, no threat of being hauled in for something he didn’t do.

There’s just marigolds and carnations and … okay, so he doesn’t really know what those purple things in the corner are, but that’s not the point. Sweet Stems is his home. Nothing could take that away, nothing could ruin that.

Today’s fairly slow, his grandma somewhere in the back tending the order of some guy who _swears on his life and everything_ that he didn’t mean to cheat on his girlfriend. His grandma had rolled her eyes taking that particular order. Sweet Pea leans up against the counter at the front, apron on and pencil tapping across his precalculus homework.

After months of playing catch up with Riverdale High curriculum after Southside High shut down, he finally feels like he knows what’s going on. He flies through the assignment, only double-checking his math when he’s stuck, which happens less often than it used to. Regardless of everything he hates about Riverdale High, he can’t complain about the education he’s actually getting now. And the lunch that’s not rotten. And the working toilets. And the art classes where the teachers actually seem _interested _in his work.

He lets out a content sigh as he flips another page in his book, only stopping every so often to yell something back to his grandma when she asks something about the order she’s working on.

And in the blink of an eye — or rather, with the chime of a bell — Sweet Pea’s sanctuary comes crashing down around him. 

Dressed in a sundress printed with blue flowers with her hair pulled back, Brooke Holliday strolls into Sweet Stems. There’s a faraway look on her face, brows furrowing as she glances down at the phone in her hand. She looks lost, about as lost as Sweet Pea assumes that she is.

Sweet Pea’s not unfamiliar with Jughead’s cheerleading best friend. In fact, he’s a little too familiar with her for his tastes. They’d met months ago, back at the closing of the Drive-In, and to this day, he can’t believe he actually thought she was hot. Okay, well, he can. Because objectively she is pretty, all bright blue eyes and wide smiles. The kind of girl Sweet Pea can see himself checking out and back when he first saw her, he figured she might just be the kind of Northsider he could hook up with once and then move on.

And then she’d opened her mouth.

He’s not exactly sure if it’s just a byproduct of being best friends with Jones for too long, but Sweet Pea’s adamant on the fact that she had to be the most annoying person he’s ever met. Sarcasm and eye-rolls seemed to be in an unending abundance when it came to her. She had a fire in her, he’d give her that much. He just wasn’t a fan of how it always seemed to be directed at him.

To say that they butted heads almost every time they were in close vicinity to each other would be an understatement. Sweet Pea knows he’s not exactly innocent in their arguments, considering half of them started by him making some sort of snarky comment every time she came down to the Southside or whenever Jughead dragged her to sit with him at lunch. But she’s not innocent either, poking the fire and making things more drawn out than they needed to be.

It’d be fine if Sweet Pea only had to see her scarcely at school, he could live with that. They only shared a few classes and it would have been far too easy to act as if they’d never met. But, because the universe seems to hate Sweet Pea, Jughead just _had_ to be a factor in the equation. Shortly after joining the Serpents, he’d started bringing Brooke around more often than not, toting her as an ally to the Serpents at school.

While she somehow managed to get along with Fangs and Toni, friendship’s definitely not a word that Sweet Pea would use to describe the relationship he has with Brooke. Acquaintances is too strong and maybe so is enemies, but he does know one thing: she’s annoying as hell and right now, she’s encroaching upon his territory.

Whether she’s blind or just stupid, she manages to not notice him at the counter. Instead, she sidles up to a row of flowers on display along the wall, a soft smile spreading on her lips as she eyes them. Shoulders tensing, Sweet Pea can’t help but slam his pencil down, the sound causing her to jump in place.

“You lost, princess?” he snaps, eyes narrowing when her gaze land on him. Pointing towards the door, he adds, “Northside’s back that way.”

“Sweet Pea?” she questions, voice flooded with confusion. She gapes at him for a moment, wheels turning in her head before she catches sight of the apron he’s wearing, the logo of the shop emblazoned on the front. At that, her lips purse into a thin line and she mutters under her breath. “Fucking Fogarty.”

Why his best friend’s name slips from her lips doesn’t register as a current issue in his mind, beyond irritated at the sight of her. He rounds the corner of the counter, arms crossing over his chest. “Whatever you’re looking for, we don’t have.”

Her eyes narrow at she looks at him, brows furrowing in confusion. “You don’t even know what I’m here for.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Her eyes roll, the bright blues swimming with annoyance. “Real mature, dumbass. If you could, like, oh I don’t know … maybe stop being an asshole for five minutes and just tell your boss I’m here, this whole little interaction,” she tells him, waving her hand between them, “can end a whole lot sooner.”

At the mention of the word boss, Sweet Pea’s eyes narrow almost to slits. “What the fuck do you need to see my grandma for?”

Brooke pauses, lips parting as his words hit her. Annoyance melts away and she’s left only with her initial confusion, although it seems to be tripled by now. “Wait, grandma? You’re — ”

The door leading to the backroom opens, a small woman and a bundle of flowers slipping through. Brooke and Sweet Pea freeze, heads snapping in that direction just in time to see Suyin enter the front of the shop, carrying a bouquet of white tulips — _they mean forgiveness, Nathan, not that the man deserves it,_ Suyin had told him when she started the order.

Compared to her grandson, Suyin Mei is impossibly tiny. Just making five feet, she’s all green thumbs and dark hair that’s only just beginning to gray. There’s an air of wisdom to her that Sweet Pea’s never really been able to understand, only respect. She’s gentle on the outside but having been on the other side of her lectures more than once, he also knows that his grandma doesn’t take shit from anyone.

“Nathan, is this one of your little school friends?” Suyin questions as she sets the flowers down, pushing strands of dark hair back behind her ears.

“Nathan?” Brooke interjects, pulling a face. His name was _Nathan?_ She had figured that anyone who willingly went by Sweet Pea had to have some god-awful name, but Nathan’s fairly common and she’s certain she’s never been more confused in her life. Seeing the way that he bristles, she tosses him a look complete with an amused smile and a poised eyebrow. “Your name is Nathan?”

“Don’t,” he snaps at her, gaze and tone both sharp as the switchblade in his pocket. Expression softening when he looks down at Suyin, Sweet Pea shakes his head. “No, Gran, she’s not.”

She pauses for a moment, peering between the two teenagers before her, somehow missing the way their body language screams being uncomfortable from even being in the same room. Her eyes light up and a knowing smile spreads across her face. “Are you finally bringing home a nice girl for me to meet?”

Sweet Pea balks. Brooke’s eyes fly open wide and almost reflexively, she takes another step back from him. Suyin somehow doesn’t notice this, continuing to smile brightly at the both of them until her grandson begins shaking his head at her rapidly.

“No, I’m not. She’s not my girlfriend, we’re not friends,” he tells her, looking disgusted at the idea. The length of time he’d indulged the thought of hooking up with her had been extremely short-lived. So now, only an uncomfortable expression can cross his face.

If Brooke hadn’t felt the exact way, she might have been offended by the way he was quick to make it clear he wasn’t interested. Instead, she only nods in agreement. “Yeah, definitely not. I’m actually here to see — ”

“Holliday was just leaving.”

Brooke glares at him, mouth forming to make a pissed off remark, but Sweet Pea only focuses on the way his grandma’s eyes light up in recognition. “Holliday? You must be the girl I spoke to on the phone earlier!”

This is the point in the conversation where Sweet Pea becomes lost. He doesn’t get what Suyin means by having spoken to Brooke on the phone nor does he understand the way that Brooke’s frown slips off her lips, replaced with a brilliant smile as she regards the older woman.

Thrusting her hand in Suyin’s direction, Brooke politely tells her, “Brooke Holliday. We spoke about the opening.”

An exclamation of happiness leaves Suyin, a sweet smile spreading across her face as they shake hands. “Oh, good. I’ve been waiting for you. I’m sorry that the interview is on such short notice, but we’d really be happy with more help as soon as possible, isn’t that right, Nathan?”

Sweet Pea gives his grandma a look. “Help? Interview?”

Quickly exasperated, Suyin sighs. She nods her head in the direction of the store-front, where a _Help Wanted _sign hangs in the window. “With the store, Nathan. What with Mr. Jones needing you more and more, I need help around here.”

She gives him a flat look that makes Sweet Pea duck his head down. He knows she’s not fond of the fact that he joined the Serpents, never having wanted that life for him. She knew it had been coming but that didn’t make it any better. The fact that he regularly had to help on jobs irritated her to no end, though she only ever really expressed that in her facial expressions.

With Sweet Stems down a man most days and her last employee running off with some drug dealer to Vegas, Sweet Pea knows his grandma needed help. She’d put that sign up almost a week ago, but up until now, no one had called. Sweet Pea had figured it was a lost cause. No one on the Southside wanted a job at a florist’s shop, despite the amount of business that Suyin did.

What he can’t figure out is how the hell Brooke, who lived far up in the Northside on fucking _Elm Street _managed to hear about it. They didn’t put out an ad, just a sign in the window. There’s no way she could have heard about it up where she lives.

“I’m so glad that someone finally called in about the position,” Suyin gushes, grasping Brooke’s hands in hers. The two share a smile and Sweet Pea swears the world’s off its axis. “Now you said that Maria’s boy told you about it?”

_Maria’s boy? What …_

And then it clicks.

_Fucking Fogarty._ Suddenly, Brooke’s earlier mumbled commentary makes sense. Fangs told her. Groaning inwardly, Sweet Pea wants to snap. _You’ve got to be kidding me,_ he thinks to himself, instantly compiling a list of choice words for his so-called best friend.

Brooke nods brightly, ignoring the way Sweet Pea’s glowering beside her. “I was mentioning looking for a job and he said that this place needed help. Guess he thought I’d be a good fit.”

He couldn’t fathom why Fangs would think that. Granted, the two somehow managed to get on quicker than a house on fire, but it still didn’t add up. Why the fuck would Fangs help Brooke look for a job? A little horrified part of him wondered if the two are hooking up. Sweet Pea wouldn’t put it past Fangs — the second he found someone attractive, his _smooth moves_ would soon follow and helping a pretty girl get a job seemed like it could fit under that category.

God, he hopes that assumption is wrong. It’s bad enough Jones brings her around, but Fangs? The world might as well have been ending.

“We should probably discuss hours and what will be expected of you here when you start,” Suyin tells Brooke, letting go of her hands and moving to pluck up the bouquet she’d deposited onto the counter earlier. “We can — ”

“Wait, you’re actually hiring her?” Sweet Pea interjects, eyes widening at the way his grandma says _when _instead of _if._ “Gran, you can’t be serious?”

“I’m being very serious, dear. If I could teach you how to make arrangements, I think I can handle getting her accustomed to working here.” Turning to Brooke she adds, “it’s not terribly hard work, just making bouquets and the occasional delivery. You have a car, yes?”

“Uh, a bike, actually,” Brooke replies, glancing out to the front where a pale-yellow bicycle, complete with a fucking basket, leans up against a dingy light post.

“We’re looking for someone who can drive,” Sweet Pea tells her flatly.

Suyin waves her hand dismissively at her grandson. “Nathan, enough. A bike should be fine, I trust my flowers more on that than on that death machine you insist on driving everywhere.”

If his grandma hadn’t been standing right there, Sweet Pea’s pretty sure Brooke would have stuck her tongue out at him like a child. Instead, she just sends him a look that pretty much reads _suck on that_.

“Doesn’t Blossom have you Vixens on a leash after school or something?” He could’ve sworn he remembered Toni groaning about near-daily practices under the red devil’s reign of evil.

In a tone that’s a little _too_ sweet, she replies, “Cheer seasons over, didn’t Toni tell you? I’m one hundred percent free now and I’m looking to put my time after school into a job.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Suyin laughs, an amused look on her face.

“But — ”

Suyin claps her hands together happily, cutting Sweet Pea off. “Then it’s settled. Brooke, dear, follow me and we can discuss the fine details in the back, and I can show you around while my grandson gets back to his work.” There’s a pointed look sent Sweet Pea’s way as she ushers the blonde girl into the back room.

He glares at the back of Brooke’s head as she disappears behind the door with his grandma. He figures she must have felt it because right before the door closes, she glances over his shoulder, catching sight of it. Her eyes roll just as the door shuts.

His shoulders slump, glancing around Sweet Stems with a newfound disdain. The vibrancy of the blossoms seem to dim, the soft fragrances dissipate, and all Sweet Pea can register in this place is his own annoyance.

Well, there goes his happy place.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and let me know if you liked this and would like to see more!


End file.
